Oww! I feel good (James Brown)

The books just keep on being read. I'm currently having my brain rearranged by Paulo Coelho again. His companion volume to The Alchemist is called Warrior of the Light and it is fab and gear. It's a manual for living and is a bosker addition to that peculiar, loosely called, genre of self-help books. I'm sure I will dip into this one in the years to come (see http://baggytrewsers.blogspot.com/ for a sample).

I was reading the Gulf Times a couple of days ago and when I say read I mean my eye was flicking over the page as my fingers were turning the pages (my usual habit). A headline to a tiny story buried on page 4 registered a few seconds later (as I reached page 8) and so I turned back a few pages for a closer look.

The headline was

Emir donates
20mn euros
to Comoros

That was intriguing - I had no idea who or what Comoros was but 20 million euros is serious money to donate. Here's the story and see if this impresses you as much as it sure as heckfire impresses me:

HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad
bin Khalifa al-Thani has don-
ated 20mn euros to the
Comoros to pay off salary
arrears owed to civil servants,
the president of the island
nation said.
"I can confirm that the money
has been paid in to the Co-
moros central bank." President
Ahmed Abdallah Sambi said
on Sunday during a speech,
adding that wages would be
handed out to civil servants
during the week.
The Emir visited the Comoros
on April 22 and promised to
pay off nine months of salary
arrears for civil servants.
It was the first official visit by
an Arab head of state to the
poor Indian Ocean archipelago,
a politically tense state which
has been rocked by more than
20 coups since independence
from France in 1975.
A delegation from Qatar
arrived last week to hand
over the money.

Wow! I mean, seriously - WOW!! I know I shouldn't believe everything I read but in the absence of evidence to the contrary - WOW!! There are a number of things here aren't there? A first visit by an Arab head of state; the Comoros is poor; this was for civil servant wages; the Comoros is politically unstable; it's in the Indian Ocean; officials handed over the money; it was a donation; this is 20 million euros!!

I am seriously impressed. I know there are always underlying agendas at play but come on! He didn't have to visit. He didn't have to listen. He didn't have to promise and he didn't have to act. I am seriously impressed!

This story made me feel great. Sometimes (sometimes) the world we live in is a good place to be.